Lovely, Dark and Deep

The days continue to get hotter, have crept into the high nineties. Since the move, I've been driving to and from school. The mornings aren't bad, of course, but the afternoons already verge on unbearable in my climate uncontrolled car. The heat sits heavy on my skin, and I am soaked when I get home.

But by 8 PM or so, the weather has usually calmed its ass down. I can drive comfortably in my car with the windows down and arrive at my destination without looking gross. Because of this, my days are scheduled around this taming of the temperature, and I once more become acquainted with the night.

Tonight I went to see Justin, and I found that I am somehow temporally closer to him now. We both live in suburbs of the city, but in opposite directions; there is an interstate that connects us, however, and that makes the drive much faster. I am still getting used to the aesthetics of this drive: the same sodium-colored lights, but more. The industrialized views of factories. The briny smell of the marshes that are slowly disappearing, that intriguing and putrescent mix of salt and sand.

The drive gives me the opportunity to put on music and to think. Joe postulates that my autopilot is better than those of most people because I so often rely on it to carry me from one place to another, to continue my physical journey while I play out thoughts in my head. I've been having trouble staying on one cd lately; it's not that I don't know what I want to listen to, but that I want to listen to single songs off of several cds. When I had my iPod hooked to my car--it feels like ages ago--this wasn't a problem, but now it involves a shuffling of cds that is impractical and verges on unsafe. Tonight, I had settled on one cd, but had forgotten that it skips on my favorite song, the last of the disc. As I shook off the disappointment of that deficit, I pulled into my new complex. All around, there are the sounds of forced nature: the fountains in the manufactured lakes, the ducks that reside therein. My favorite sounds are those that can't be forced or manufactured, specifically the sound of crickets and insects that can't be stopped by any human force. If I close my eyes, it helps me remember that I am home.

When I climbed into bed to write this a few minutes ago, I intended to listen to a song that I thought I had downloaded off of iTunes last night. But apparently, my fingers had slipped and I had downloaded the song that came before it in the list of songs by this artist. Serendipity showed its face, as it is wont to do, and the lyrics of this song I had accidentally downloaded mirrored a strip from A Softer World that I was thinking of earlier today:

I will save you
If you save me
Take me with you
Take me with you

Wherever you will go
I will go there with you
And I will love you

I could go on and on about how these same themes are constantly playing in my life, this idea of following someone--not in the sense of copying them or bending to their will--this idea of trusting someone enough to go where they will.

People ask me often how I do it, how I live away from Joey, usually when they find themselves in a situation where their significant other is gone. I have a plethora of canned answers to give to this question, but I don't usually tell them that following someone doesn't necessarily have to mean being with them physically. That trusting someone allows you to close your eyes and remember that you are home.

I'll take you there.